Nehemiah Griego was fifteen years old when he murdered his entire family. According to court documents Nehemiah would shoot his mother first and when his brother became upset Nehemiah would shoot him as well. Nehemiah Griego would murder his two other siblings as well then waited for his father to come home and would shoot and kill him as well. This teen killer was initially charged as a juvenile however over the years the State has been fighting this. In 2019 Nehemiah Grieg was sentenced to life in prison
Nehemiah Griego 2023 Information
Last Name: GRIEGO First Name: NEHEMIAH Middle Name: NEFRATLIE NMCD#: 87474 Offender#: 531136 Offender Status: INMATE Facility/Region:LCCF
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After a lengthy court battle and numerous twists and turns, a judge determined on Friday that Nehemiah Griego, who killed his parents and three younger siblings in 2013, will be sentenced as an adult.
On Friday, Judge Alisa Hart filed a 75-page order in 2nd Judicial District Court stating she reviewed transcripts, recordings and exhibits from a December amenability hearing and considered relevant case law and arguments from the attorneys, and found the now 22-year-old is not amenable to treatment or rehabilitation in available facilities and, therefore, should not be sentenced as a child.
The determination reverses a 2016 ruling by Children’s Court Judge John Romero who found prosecutors hadn’t proved Nehemiah Griego wasn’t amenable to treatment. Griego had pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and three counts of intentional child abuse resulting in death.
At that time, Romero sentenced Griego to the custody of New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department until his 21st birthday. However, the state Attorney General’s Office appealed the sentence and 11 days before he was supposed to be released the Court of Appeals ruled the case should be sent back to a judge for another amenability hearing.
Romero recused himself half-way through that second amenability hearing and the case was transferred to Hart’s courtroom.
Nehemiah’s sentencing date hasn’t been scheduled, but he now faces up to 120 years in prison.
However he could also receive far less prison time and receive probation and treatment instead, according to Stephen Taylor, his public defender. Taylor said he visited his client in the Metropolitan Detention Center Friday afternoon and is looking forward to the sentencing hearing.
“We are hopeful that the court would still be looking at allowing him to continue his treatment and not send him to prison which would interfere and maybe even truncate the treatment that he has received over the last six years,” Taylor told the Journal.
In January 2013, Nehemiah Griego – then 15 – shot and killed his mother and three younger siblings, ages 9, 5 and 2, in the family’s South Valley home. Then, he armed himself with an AR-15 and waited for his father to return home from his shift at a rescue mission. He shot his father four or five times, killing him.
These chilling details factored into Hart’s determination about Nehemiah Griego’s amenability to treatment as a child.
“When asked why he killed his family, child stated that he ‘can’t answer why,’ ” she wrote. “The killings of child’s family members were not committed in self-defense or defense of another. The killings of child’s family members were calculated and willful.”
The other factors Hart considered include: The seriousness of the offense; whether a firearm was used to commit the offense; whether the offense was against people; the maturity of the child; the record and previous history of the child; and the prospects for adequate protection of the public and the likelihood of reasonable rehabilitation.
Much of the specifics throughout the order are redacted, however the only factor that was weighted favorably toward Nehemiah Griego’s rehabilitation was his record and history since he “had little opportunity to interact with anyone outside of his family’s home and church.”
Hart determined the other six factors showed he is not amenable to treatment and rehabilitation as a child.
She also stated that she could not be satisfied that his release to an “unlocked treatment setting” would adequately protect the public.
“A locked treatment facility that offers services such as those offered by (redacted) may be the most beneficial option for both child and the public at this stage of child’s rehabilitation,” Hart wrote.
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Nehemiah Griego is currently incarcerated at the Lea County Correctional Facility
Deonte Green was sixteen years old when he would commit multiple armed robberies, sexually assaulted and elderly woman and murdered a man. According to court documents Deonte committed a number of violent robberies, broke into the home and sexually assaulted an eighty one year old woman and then broke into another home where he shot and killed a teach who was trying to protect his family. This teen killer would be sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder and an additional one hundred years for the additional crimes.
A teenager who killed a Broken Arrow teacher and raped an elderly woman during an armed robbery spree has received a life without parole sentence plus 100 years — the harshest punishment a Tulsa County judge has imposed on a minor since 2004.
Deonte Green’s sentence was announced after Tulsa County District Judge Kelly Greenough found the teen “irreparably corrupt and permanently incorrigible,” a criterion for imposing life without parole on a defendant who was a juvenile when the crime occurred.
Green was 16 when he fatally shot Shane Anderson, a Broken Arrow Public Schools middle school geography teacher, and committed the rape on Oct. 1, 2017.
Greenough handed down a life without parole sentence on a first-degree murder count and a combined 100-year sentence on three of the five armed robbery counts and the rape charge, which will be served consecutively.
“I’m grateful the judge’s sentence reflected (Green’s) character, his crimes, his inability to live within the boundaries of society,” Darcie Anderson, Shane Anderson’s wife, said after the decision. “But in the end nothing’s going to bring my husband back. So while I’m glad that justice was served in his case, I would trade anything to have my husband back.”
Green, now 18, entered blind guilty pleas, or pleas without a recommendation from a prosecutor, in March to 19 felony counts and one misdemeanor charge.
While announcing her findings Wednesday, Greenough said evidence showed that Green acted “without regard for empathy to his victims” and found that he exhibited “a pattern of assaultive behavior” even after being in custody at the Tulsa County jail.
Tulsa County Sheriff’s Sgt. Virgil Collett had testified Tuesday that Green had at least an estimated 30 incident reports in his file since being arrested for Anderson’s death.
Green’s case marks the first time since 2004 that a defendant in Tulsa County has received life without parole for a crime committed before his or her 18th birthday. Darrel Miller, who was 17 when he was charged with murder, pleaded guilty to life without parole that year for killing a man during an armed robbery in exchange for then-District Attorney Tim Harris’ withdrawal of his request for the death penalty.
The U.S. Supreme Court determined in 2005 that it is unconstitutional to sentence anyone to death for an offense committed before the defendant was 18.
In the case resolved Wednesday, Green committed a series of armed robberies that on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 2017, in south Tulsa. He was on juvenile probation as of August 2017 after being adjudicated for four felony property crime charges related to two previous incidents.
Green had a dozen referrals on his juvenile record, starting when he was 11, according to records the Tulsa World obtained in 2017.
“This is not a single bad day,” Assistant District Attorney Kevin Gray said. “Deonte Green has worked up to this for years. For somebody that age to have this kind of criminal history is staggering.”
As part of his plea, Green admitted stealing a vehicle from an elderly couple on Sept. 30, then robbing a second elderly man and woman the next day. He forced the second couple to drive him to an ATM to withdraw money and ultimately robbed another ATM customer who tried to assist with the transaction.
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Deonte Green is currently incarcerated at the Joseph Harp Correctional Center
Bobby Gonzales was fifteen years old when he would fatally shoot his girlfriends mother and severely injure her father. According to court documents Bobby Gonzales was dating Krissi Lynn Caldwell and she would tell him that she was being sexually abused by her father and that her mother would not stop the abuse. Bobby would enter the Texas home and shoot both of her parents who were sleeping in their bed, killing the mother and severely injuring her father.
Bobby would later learn that Krissi Lynn Caldwell was lying about the abuse. The teen killer was sentenced to life in prison. Krissi Lynn Caldwell also received a life sentence
Bobby Gonzales 2023 Information
SID Number:04687658
TDCJ Number:00647502
Name:GONZALES,ROBERT ANTHONY
Race:H
Gender:M
DOB:1976-07-26
Maximum Sentence Date:LIFE SENTENCE
Current Facility:ALFRED HUGHES
Projected Release Date:LIFE SENTENCE
Parole Eligibility Date:2027-04-02
Offender Visitation Eligible:YES
Krissi Caldwell 2023 Information
SID Number: 04725341
TDCJ Number: 00644824
Name: CALDWELL,KRISSI LYNN
Race: W
Gender: F
DOB: 1975-10-02
Maximum Sentence Date: LIFE SENTENCE
Current Facility: HOBBY
Projected Release Date: LIFE SENTENCE
Parole Eligibility Date: 2027-06-29
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Appellant was romantically involved with Krissi Caldwell, the teenage daughter of the deceased. The deceased and her husband disapproved of their daughter’s relationship with appellant and forbade Krissi to see appellant. Mr. Caldwell testified that Krissi was not permitted to invite appellant over to the Caldwells’ residence and that neither he nor the deceased ever consented to allow appellant to be in their home. As a result of these restrictions, Krissi’s relationship with her parents grew increasingly strained. This tension eventually culminated into Krissi’s plan to have appellant murder her parents.
One evening, after her parents had gone to sleep, Krissi let appellant into the house. Krissi gave appellant a 9mm automatic pistol she had taken from her father’s nightstand. Armed with the gun, appellant entered the Caldwells’ bedroom and fired five or six shots into both of the Caldwells. Mr. Caldwell survived the attack, but Mrs. Caldwell died from multiple gunshot wounds.
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Mailing address is
Robert Gonzalez #647502
Hughes uni tRt. 2 Box 4400
Gatesville, TX 76597
*If using the JPay platform and would like a response please include you’re return address.
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A Texas jury Friday sentenced a 17-year-old girl to life in prison for soliciting the murders of her parents because they disapproved of her dating a boy of another race.
Jurors deliberated for more than three hours before returning the verdict against Krissi Lynn Caldwell of Frisco, a small town near Dallas.
Prosecutors said she and her boyfriend, Robert Anthony Gonzales, 16, conspired to kill her mother, Rosalyn Caldwell, 41, and father, Vernon Caldwell, 42. Gonzales will be tried later for murder.
The girl, with tears in her eyes, stood with her attorney before Judge John Roach when he read the sentence. The same jury returned the guilty verdict Thursday afte four hours of deliberation.
In final arguments, prosecutor Bill Schultz pointed at Caldwell and told the jury, ‘You’re looking at somebody who has absolutely no regard for human life.’ He said she would do anything to get her way.
Defense attorney Don McDermott called no witnesses and declined to present a defense.
McDermott charged in his closing argument that the state failed to prove its case against Caldwell, and placed all the blame on Gonzales. McDermott said, ‘He planned it, and he carried it out.
Authorities said a gunman slipped into the Caldwell home at Frisco during the night of March 6 and opened fire on the Caldwells as they slept. Mrs. Caldwell was killed, Mr. Caldwell was critically wounded.
During a hearing in May to certify Gonzales for trial as adult, a witness testified that Gonzales wanted to kill the Caldwells because they disapproved of inter-racial dating. Bobby Gonzales is Hispanic; Krissi Caldwell is white.
Gonzales, also of Frisco, will be tried later on charges of capital murder, soliciation of capital murder and attempted capital murder. He is suspected of firing the gun during the attack.
Paul Gingerich was twelve and Colt Lundy was fifteen when they murdered Colt’s stepfather as he sat sleeping in his chair. The preteens would then steal the family car and would be arrested at a Walmart in Illinois the next day. Both of the teen killers would stand trial and be sentenced as adults and received thirty years each in prison. Both have since been released from prison after their initial sentences were reduced
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Paul Henry Gingerich was just 12 when he helped a friend Colt Lundy murder his stepfather.
He also became famous. His story was featured on news shows and crime documentaries, and his case becoming a cause célèbre and a measuring stick on the fairness of the American juvenile justice system.
Here’s what we know about Gingerich and Lundy today, nearly a decade after their crime.
It was shocking when Gingerich and his 15-year-old friend, Colt Lundy, were arrested for the 2010 murder of Phil Danner, a husband, father, machinist and member of the American Legion.
Gingerich, who stands 6 feet tall now, was pint-sized with the face of an urchin and bangs reaching to the top of his eyes. Although he was three years older, Lundy wasn’t much taller than his accomplice and looked very innocent, too, with a face full of freckles.
But Gingerich and Lundy were accused of firing two shots each into Danner’s body.
After the killing, Gingerich, Lundy and a third boy quickly gathered up a few things, including Danner’s wallet, a handgun and some marijuana a friend gave them, and jumped into Danner’s car.
They then headed west on a cross-country trip that ended when they were stopped by a police officer in Peru, Ill.
Gingerich was believed to be the youngest person in Indiana ever sentenced as an adult.
Few could understand what could cause two people so young to commit such a heinous crime.
Lundy said later that he got along well enough with his stepfather — when Danner was sober.
But when Danner drank whiskey and lapsed into one of his tirades, Lundy said, Danner would then become verbally and physically abusive toward him.
Eventually, all Lundy could think about was escaping. One day he took matters into his own hands, after conceiving a plot to kill his stepfather.
On the night of April 20, 2010, Lundy and Gingerich climbed through a window of Lundy’s bedroom in his family’s home in the Enchanted Hills neighborhood of Cromwell, Indiana, in Kosciusko County. They then grabbed two of the many guns Danner had stashed around the house and waited for him in the living room.
At first, they debated about whether they should go through with it. But as Danner, who was in another part of the house, got up and walked into the living room, he suddenly saw the two boys with guns pointed at him.
All he had time to say was “What the f—?” — according to Lundy’s description in a court record — before each boy fired two bullets into his body, killing Danner instantly.
On April 29, 2010, Kosciusko County Superior Court Judge Duane Huffer moved Gingerich’s case into (adult) criminal court, at the request of prosecutors. The next day Gingerich was charged with murder.
About six months later, both boys pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder and both were sentenced to serve 25 years in prison.
While the murder of Danner was shocking for its brutality and callousness, some in the U.S. and abroad thought the sentences were too severe — especially given the ages of the defendants.
In an amicus curae brief filed in November 2011, the Children’s Law Center, the National Juvenile Defender Center and the Campaign for Youth Justice argued against the “dire consequences” of prosecuting youths in the adult justice system.
Gingerich was sent to the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility to serve his sentence, while Lundy was sent to the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility.
Even with credits for good behavior, that sentence could have kept Gingerich locked up until his mid-20s, with some of that time likely spent in an adult prison.
But both cases had only just begun to wind their way through the Indiana court system.
Soon after he entered prison, Indianapolis attorney Monica Foster began an appeal for Gingerich on a pro-bono basis, meaning she would work on the case for free.
In December 2012, the Indiana Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Gingerich. The appeals court reversed his 2010 conviction, after determining that a Kosciusko County court had erred by not giving his attorneys enough time to make the case that he should have been tried as a juvenile.
The Indiana attorney general’s reaction at the time was guarded, saying it would continue to work with the Kosciusko County prosecutor’s office “in this difficult matter involving the violent taking of a human life by a juvenile.”
“This offender’s age at the time of the crime prompted a necessary discussion about the rights of the accused, but no one should lose sight of the fact that there is still a deceased victim and the rights of crime victims also should be respected and protected,” the attorney general said in a statement to the IndyStar.
Foster said at the time that Gingerich’s nearly three years of good conduct showed he could be rehabilitated. Foster also planned to introduce expert testimony on brain development to show that children as young as 12 were unable to judge the consequences of their actions.
Gingerich’s case inspired child advocates and juvenile justice activists to lobby for change in Indiana’s juvenile sentencing guidelines. Their efforts resulted in a new law, dubbed “Paul’s Law,” passed in 2013, that gave Indiana courts greater flexibility in deciding juvenile sentences.
In a deal struck with the prosecutor in December 2013, Gingerich again pleaded guilty, this time at the age of 15. The difference: Judge James Heuer applied the new sentencing rules, agreeing to monitor Gingerich’s progress toward rehabilitation in juvenile prison until his release several years later.
A qualified yes.
Gingerich was released from the Pendleton prison in March 2017, after nearly seven years behind bars.
He was 19 at the time of his release and is 21 now.
After his release, Gingerich began living with his mother, Nicole, in Fort Wayne, but he had to undergo 24-hour electronic monitoring with an ankle bracelet until July 2018, as well as close supervision by the court. He also took a job in a manufacturing facility.
“He’s really working hard on doing everything he is supposed to do and really trying to move forward,” his mother told the IndyStar.
The court’s supervision of Gingerich will continue until February 2020, at which time he will begin 10 years of probation.
A northern Indiana judge agreed to allow Lundy to enter home detention earlier than expected.
In October 2018, Kosciusko County Judge David Cates heard the 23-year-old Lundy’s request for a sentence modification.
Lundy had requested to serve the rest of his term on home detention, saying he had served his prison time, so far, without incident and had taken advantage of programs offered to him, including “obtaining a higher education degree.”
It was the second time Lundy had done so; an earlier request for a sentence reduction in 2016 had been rejected.
But this time was different. Lundy will be allowed to finish his sentence out of prison starting March 15 of 2019, according to the Associated Press. He will then be put on probation.
Kosciusko County Prosecutor Daniel Hampton said after Gingerich was re-sentenced in 2013 that the new law “applies very well in this case” and allows for flexibility that a prior judge didn’t have when Gingerich was first sentenced.
Foster has long said that Gingerich was a good prospect for rehabilitation.
“I’ve known him for the last 2½ years and I am willing to bet the mortgage on Paul Gingerich,” Foster said in 2013. “He is a good kid who did a very bad thing.”
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Paul Gingerich was just 12 when he helped a friend Colt Lundy murder his stepfather.
He also became famous. His story was featured on news shows and crime documentaries, and his case becoming a cause célèbre and a measuring stick on the fairness of the American juvenile justice system.
Here’s what we know about Gingerich and Lundy today, nearly a decade after their crime.
It was shocking when Paul Gingerich and his 15-year-old friend, Colt Lundy, were arrested for the 2010 murder of Phil Danner, a husband, father, machinist and member of the American Legion.
Gingerich, who stands 6 feet tall now, was pint-sized with the face of an urchin and bangs reaching to the top of his eyes. Although he was three years older, Lundy wasn’t much taller than his accomplice and looked very innocent, too, with a face full of freckles
But Gingerich and Lundy were accused of firing two shots each into Danner’s body.
After the killing, Gingerich, Lundy and a third boy quickly gathered up a few things, including Danner’s wallet, a handgun and some marijuana a friend gave them, and jumped into Danner’s car.
They then headed west on a cross-country trip that ended when they were stopped by a police officer in Peru, Ill.
Paul Gingerich was believed to be the youngest person in Indiana ever sentenced as an adult.
Few could understand what could cause two people so young to commit such a heinous crime.
Lundy said later that he got along well enough with his stepfather — when Danner was sober.
But when Danner drank whiskey and lapsed into one of his tirades, Lundy said, Danner would then become verbally and physically abusive toward him.
On the night of April 20, 2010, Lundy and Paul Gingerich climbed through a window of Lundy’s bedroom in his family’s home in the Enchanted Hills neighborhood of Cromwell, Indiana, in Kosciusko County. They then grabbed two of the many guns Danner had stashed around the house and waited for him in the living room.
At first, they debated about whether they should go through with it. But as Danner, who was in another part of the house, got up and walked into the living room, he suddenly saw the two boys with guns pointed at him.
All he had time to say was “What the f—?” — according to Lundy’s description in a court record — before each boy fired two bullets into his body, killing Danner instantly.
On April 29, 2010, Kosciusko County Superior Court Judge Duane Huffer moved Gingerich’s case into (adult) criminal court, at the request of prosecutors. The next day Paul Gingerich was charged with murder.
About six months later, both boys pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder and both were sentenced to serve 25 years in prison.
While the murder of Danner was shocking for its brutality and callousness, some in the U.S. and abroad thought the sentences were too severe — especially given the ages of the defendants.
In an amicus curae brief filed in November 2011, the Children’s Law Center, the National Juvenile Defender Center and the Campaign for Youth Justice argued against the “dire consequences” of prosecuting youths in the adult justice system.
Paul Gingerich was sent to the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility to serve his sentence, while Lundy was sent to the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility.
Even with credits for good behavior, that sentence could have kept Gingerich locked up until his mid-20s, with some of that time likely spent in an adult prison.
But both cases had only just begun to wind their way through the Indiana court system.
Soon after he entered prison, Indianapolis attorney Monica Foster began an appeal for Paul Gingerich on a pro-bono basis, meaning she would work on the case for free.
In December 2012, the Indiana Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Paul Gingerich. The appeals court reversed his 2010 conviction, after determining that a Kosciusko County court had erred by not giving his attorneys enough time to make the case that he should have been tried as a juvenile.
The Indiana attorney general’s reaction at the time was guarded, saying it would continue to work with the Kosciusko County prosecutor’s office “in this difficult matter involving the violent taking of a human life by a juvenile.”
“This offender’s age at the time of the crime prompted a necessary discussion about the rights of the accused, but no one should lose sight of the fact that there is still a deceased victim and the rights of crime victims also should be respected and protected,” the attorney general said in a statement to the IndyStar.
Foster said at the time that Gingerich’s nearly three years of good conduct showed he could be rehabilitated. Foster also planned to introduce expert testimony on brain development to show that children as young as 12 were unable to judge the consequences of their actions.
Gingerich’s case inspired child advocates and juvenile justice activists to lobby for change in Indiana’s juvenile sentencing guidelines. Their efforts resulted in a new law, dubbed “Paul’s Law,” passed in 2013, that gave Indiana courts greater flexibility in deciding juvenile sentences.
In a deal struck with the prosecutor in December 2013, Gingerich again pleaded guilty, this time at the age of 15. The difference: Judge James Heuer applied the new sentencing rules, agreeing to monitor Gingerich’s progress toward rehabilitation in juvenile prison until his release several years later
He was 19 at the time of his release and is 21 now.
After his release, Gingerich began living with his mother, Nicole, in Fort Wayne, but he had to undergo 24-hour electronic monitoring with an ankle bracelet until July 2018, as well as close supervision by the court. He also took a job in a manufacturing facility.
“He’s really working hard on doing everything he is supposed to do and really trying to move forward,” his mother told the IndyStar.
The court’s supervision of Paul Gingerich will continue until February 2020, at which time he will begin 10 years of probation.
A northern Indiana judge agreed to allow Lundy to enter home detention earlier than expected.
In October 2018, Kosciusko County Judge David Cates heard the 23-year-old Lundy’s request for a sentence modification.
Lundy had requested to serve the rest of his term on home detention, saying he had served his prison time, so far, without incident and had taken advantage of programs offered to him, including “obtaining a higher education degree.”
It was the second time Lundy had done so; an earlier request for a sentence reduction in 2016 had been rejected.
But this time was different. Lundy will be allowed to finish his sentence out of prison starting March 15 of 2019, according to the Associated Press. He will then be put on probation.
Kosciusko County Prosecutor Daniel Hampton said after Paul Gingerich was re-sentenced in 2013 that the new law “applies very well in this case” and allows for flexibility that a prior judge didn’t have when Gingerich was first sentenced.
Foster has long said that Paul Gingerich was a good prospect for rehabilitation.
“I’ve known him for the last 2½ years and I am willing to bet the mortgage on Paul Gingerich,” Foster said in 2013. “He is a good kid who did a very bad thing.”
William Gaul was seventeen years old when he murdered his ex girlfriend for ending their relationship in Tennessee . According to court documents William Gaul and the victim Emma Walker dated for over two years when she ended the relationship. William Gaul would go over to the victims home and shoot several times into her bedroom killing the sixteen year old girl. This teen killer would be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole until fifty one years
Former Division III college football player William Riley Gaul was found guilty on Tuesday of first-degree murder after shooting through the bedroom wall of his ex-girlfriend while she was sleeping. The eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated four hours before reaching its verdict. The 19-year-old was immediately given a mandatory sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole for 51 years.
Gaul was a wide receiver who had just finished his freshman season at Tennessee’s Maryville College when 16-year-old Emma Walker was killed on Nov. 21, 2016. Gaul was dismissed from the team after his arrest.
Audible gasps could be heard from the gallery when the jury foreman pronounced him guilty. Gaul, who had been out on bond, was taken into custody. Relatives and friends of the former high school cheerleader later embraced outside the courtroom.
“Today is about justice for Emma Walker and her family,” Knox County District Attorney Charme Allen said.
Both sides agreed Gaul fired the shots from outside the Walker family’s home in Knoxville. The debate was over his state of mind at the time.
Prosecutors said Gaul intended to kill his ex-girlfriend in anger over the end of their two-year relationship. Defense lawyer Wesley Stone said Gaul never intended to harm Walker and should be convicted of the lesser charge of reckless homicide.
Jenny Weldon, Walker’s aunt, told the Knoxville News Sentinel two days after the killing that the girl had ended a romantic relationship with Gaul in recent weeks, but he refused to accept the breakup.
“She had chosen to move on,” Weldon told the paper. “He refused to accept it. He chose not to accept her wishes.”
Gaul also was found guilty of felony murder, stalking, tampering with evidence, theft of between $500 and $1,000, and possession of a firearm in a dangerous felony. Gaul also pleaded guilty before trial to reckless endangerment. Sentencing on the non-murder convictions was scheduled for July 20.
“Every person in here that she touched, their lives will never be the same again because of him, and his selfishness, his lies, his possessiveness, his manipulation and his obsessiveness of Emma Walker,” Assistant District Attorney Kevin Allen, the husband of Charme Allen, said as he pointed to Gaul during his closing argument.
A picture of Walker, smiling in her cheerleading uniform, was displayed on the wall behind Kevin Allen as he described the impact on her friends and family.
“They’re crushed with the loss of a spirit that was like sunshine to them,” the prosecutor said. “She was strong-willed. She was sassy. She was sarcastic sometimes. But she was their light.”
Stone said Gaul fired the shots in a misguided attempt to be Walker’s “hero.” Gaul thought scaring her could encourage her to reach out to him for help and rekindle their relationship.
“To be somebody’s hero, to rescue somebody, you have to have contact – and the only way you can have contact is to get their attention,” Stone said. “When Riley Gaul fired that shot in the backyard, as crazy as it is, as bizarre as it is, he was hoping that he could come to her rescue.”
Stone frequently cited Gaul’s youth — he was 18 at the time — while referring to his “bizarre” motivations. Walker and Gaul had begun dating when both were at Central High School in Knoxville. Their breakup led to a series of unusual events.
Two nights before the shooting, Walker got some concerning texts and then walked outside a friend’s house to find Gaul lying in a ditch and saying he’d been kidnapped. The next day, she saw a man dressed in black walking her neighborhood and eventually banging on her door.
Prosecutors said Gaul concocted the kidnapping scheme, stalked her neighborhood and banged on her door in an attempt to fabricate potential suspects once he eventually killed Walker.
Stone said Gaul only pretended to be kidnapped, hoping to see Walker again, and denied that his client was the man banging on her door.
Prosecutors also said Gaul was familiar enough with Walker’s home to know precisely where to aim to inflict the most damage on Walker, who died of a gunshot wound to the left side of her head.
Stone disputed an 18-year-old would have that kind of understanding.
“You’d have to assume that my client intended to kill her by him knowing the number of pillows she would be laying (on) and you have to assume where her head was,” Stone said. “You’d have to assume he knew that.”
Kevin Allen also noted that Gaul tweeted “That’s my beautiful Emma, rest easy now sweetheart” sometime between her death and his arrest.
“This affront, not only in killing their daughter, but then going out in the community and posing like a poser, like a liar,” he said. “Please convict him.”
William Gaul is currently incarcerated at the Northwest Correctional Complex
William Gaul Release Date
William Gaul is not eligible for release until 2071
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William Riley Gaul will serve no extra prison time besides a mandatory life sentence for killing his ex-girlfriend, Central High School honor student and cheerleader Emma Walker.
”What happened in this case was very unique to these two people,” Criminal Court Judge Bob McGee said Friday. “He killed one person — this young woman. His sentence is already a very long one.”
A Knox County jury found Gaul, 20, guilty in May of first-degree murder, stalking, reckless endangerment, theft, tampering with evidence and possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony in Walker’s death. His sentence allows the possibility of parole after 51 years — at age 71
Prosecutors cited those additional convictions at Friday’s hearing and asked the judge to tack extra time onto Gaul’s sentence.
”Keep him where he belongs,” Assistant District Attorney General Molly Martin said. “He doesn’t deserve any opportunity to ever get out of prison.”
Gaul fired two shots into Walker’s bedroom in North Knox County as she slept the night of Nov. 21, 2016. One shot struck Walker in the head, killing her.
Gaul, then a freshman football player at Maryville College, claimed he fired the shots in a bid to somehow win back Walker, his former girlfriend, and insisted he didn’t mean to hurt her. Jurors didn’t buy it
Gaul had no criminal record prior to killing Walker. The judge said without some proof Gaul’s a danger to society, he can’t lock him up any longer than the law already prescribes.
“This is the only violation (of the law) he’s ever exhibited,” the judge said.
The sentence imposed for the additional convictions adds up to a little more than a decade – but will run at the same time as the life sentence, making it essentially symbolic
Investigators determined Gaul stole the murder weapon — a 9mm Glock pistol — from his grandfather. Testimony showed Gaul later recruited his friends to help him ditch the gun, not realizing they already had gone to police.
The friends secretly recorded Gaul at the urging of Knox County Sheriff’s Office detectives. Deputies arrested Gaul as he planned to toss a trash bag of evidence, including the gun, into the Tennessee River
Gaul and his attorney admitted he fired the fatal shots from the backyard of Walker’s family home, but claimed it was only a poorly planned attempt to scare her and send her running back into his arms. Gaul and Walker had dated off and on until Walker broke off the relationship.
He’d already made other bizarre bids for attention in the days before the shooting, including sending Walker anonymous, threatening texts and staging suicide attempts and his own kidnapping.
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